


Han: Heal.

by signifying_nothing



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 04:44:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4863614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this won't make sense if you haven't read Han.<br/>Kyungsoo takes the first steps toward recovery.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Han: Heal.

**Author's Note:**

> this won't make sense if you haven't read Han.  
> Kyungsoo takes the first steps toward recovery.

Kyungsoo murdered the king.

With his red eyes and crackling skin he crushed the man's neck in one hand, as though the strength of his fingers extended around the throat while his palm crunched the windpipe under it's heel. Any attempt the guardsmen made to touch Kyungsoo had gauntlets and skin melting away like a glove coming off. He felt no pity for them, these men who knew what had been planned, these men who were going to allow them all – their general, their _friends –_ to be murdered. No loyalty. Only Death.

When the head had been separated from the body and the wound cauterized by the heat Kyungsoo gave off, he took a breath. He turned to the court, the terrified men and women trapped in the throne room by Chanyeol and Minseok at the doors. He thought of Baekhyun crumpled on the floor. He thought of Taemin blown away by the force of his rage.

He cracked his neck and straightened his shoulders.

“The King is dead,” he said, his eyes scanning over the crowd in front of him. He found Joonmyeon, motioned him forward. “The king is dead,” he said again, lifting the crown that had fallen to the ground, looking at it thoughtfully. The simple gold circlet was nothing spectacular. But given to the right man it would act as the flame in a lighthouse, guiding.

“Long live the King.”

Joonmyeon bowed deeply, nodded his head as Kyungsoo set the crown into his dark hair. Kyungsoo was not a ruler. But Joonmyeon was. He was impartial, fair, temperate. Everything Kyungsoo was not. He would be able to take the reins and lead, as would have been his rightful duty if he stayed in his house of birth.

“Go to him,” Joonmyeon murmured. “I will take care of this.”

Kyungsoo gave a stiff nod in thanks before he walked back through the room. People scrambled out of his way. Chanyeol and Minseok opened the doors for him, each bowing their heads, each subtly concerned (though Chanyeol, less subtle.) Kyungsoo knew Yixing was with Hakyeon, Jongdae and Jongin in one of the waiting rooms; Yixing had been eager to check on them all once they'd reached the palace proper, to take care of them, and Kyungsoo hadn't needed his help with his own task.

Inside the room, the dying sunlight streamed through the window. Hakyeon was lying against Jongdae, who was murmuring into his ear. Jongin sat by their sides, his head on Hakyeon's thigh, his eyes hollow.

And Baekhyun...

Kyungsoo hadn't been able to bring himself to look at his lover for more than a few seconds since he'd peeled him up from the floor of that wretched room to the sound of Jongin sobbing and Yixing shouting. His skin was so pale, his eyes were so pale, his hair... It was as though someone had taken a wash of white paint and soaked him. Yixing was bent over him, hands on his shoulders and Kyungsoo could see the soft blue light around his hands.

“I think he's all right, Kyungsoo,” Yixing said without turning around. His voice was gentle as ever and Kyungsoo felt a hot rush of guilt, thankfulness, desperate, agonizing gladness that Yixing had somehow managed to – to tolerate all that Kyungsoo did and said and had stayed – had stayed at least until this moment. Kyungsoo did not deserve a friend like him. Not at all. “Just sleeping.” Kyungsoo nodded, tense, covered in blood and ash.

“I will bathe. Then come back for him.”

“Yes.”

The walk to his home on the palace grounds felt like floating. Kyungsoo did not feel real. By now word of the murder had reached the far corners of the city and the guards had all done as they were due and gone straight to the barracks. There was no one there on the path, no one to stop him, to shatter the unnatural quiet. Kyungsoo did not feel as though he were walking in a true place, and he half-expected his hand to pass through the handle of his door. When it did not, he stepped inside.

His home was exactly as he'd left it. Clean, neat, the oil lamps unlit. He went to the bathing room and turned on the water, pumped hot from a spring under the mountain the palace sat nestled in. He bathed, scalded away the first layer of skin as he tried to-- to make himself _clean._

How could he have been so foolish, so blind? How could he have allowed this to happen, these massacres, how could he have allowed himself to be so willfully ignorant of the consequences of his actions? How could he have trusted the king so completely when he didn't trust his own lover that much, when he didn't trust _himself –_

Kyungsoo pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. It was luck and nothing more that ensured they survived the entire journey home, from the fortress and then the long trek back to the capital city. Luck and Taekwoon's insistent safety precautions. Surely Kyungsoo would be dead if they hadn't done as Taekwoon asked them, told them.

He clawed his scalp, pulled viciously at his hair. He did not want-- He did not want to feel this way. Everything was so heavy and thick, everything-- everything  _hurt._ Baekhyun--

“Do not allow your guilt to swallow you, Kyungsoo-twice-dead.”

~

There is a little boy, holding the shoulder of his dead mother. He is ten, riddled with sickness and he shakes her, weeps into her dry hair. She is dead, and he is dead, his father's ferocious hands shake him, throw him, beat him until he cannot lift his head, cannot cry. He dies for a moment. All of his breath leaves his body as he rests upon his mother's chest and Death shoves him back from the comforting dark. It does not want him.

 

There is a young man impaled on the end of a polearm. He holds a sword and his eyes are ablaze. The man holding the polearm stares in terror as the monster he has pinned shoves himself further down the blade and cuts off his head with one monstrous swing. Kyungsoo walks back to the tents, the polearm near perfectly balanced on either side of his back and chest. He falls to kneel. He dies. He dies and a second time, Death flings him back into life.

 

_Twice-dead,_ it hisses as he gags on his own blood.  _Twice-dead. You stay._

~

“How do you know that name,” Kyungsoo asked, weary of Taekwoon appearing as he pleased wherever he pleased.

“I have always known it.” Taekwoon sat on the edge of the tub. “You did the right thing.”

“In murdering innocent people to aid in a plot that would have ended with me and mine murdered?”

“Would have,” Taekwoon replied. “If it had been allowed to happen. But you prevented it.”

“Only through your guidance.”

It sliced his chest to admit that; to admit that he'd been wrong, to admit that he hadn't known, hadn't wanted to know, had perhaps consciously turned a blind eye to the strange goings-on in order to further his own mission. He'd murdered all those people. By doing nothing, he'd ensured their deaths and the weight of their souls was crushing. To kill in battle was one thing. To murder mothers and children while they slept was another.

He hadn't felt it in so long, the crippling pressure. He'd nearly forgotten it.

“But still.” Taekwoon offered out his arm. “I will stay with you, and continue to guide you, if you would allow me.”

Kyungsoo wanted to say no. He wanted to disappear, to leave this place, leave Baekhyun in the care of people who could love him as he deserved, with none of the aches and bruises, with none of the meanness and rough edges that Kyungsoo could not help but have. Joonmyeon could rule the kingdom competently on his own and Baekhyun deserved the stars on a string around his neck, he deserved for Kyungsoo to disappear and never return, something loved once, best forgotten.

But Kyungsoo could not disappear. He could not. Baekhyun had leapt between them, Kyungsoo and Death, when Death had reached out sharp fingers to finally take him. Baekhyun had died for him, had spilled his blood like moonlight and choked in his arms, gasped for breath, clung to him when Yixing tried to pull him away to save him. Baekhyun would not leave Kyungsoo and so Kyungsoo could not leave him.

“...Yes,” he said, after a moment. “Yes, I believe...”

“I am going to aid Joonmyeon, for now.” Taekwoon said, clasping their forearms together for a moment. His skin was warm, unnaturally so. Strange, since his skin was ice-pale. “I will find a home to stay in. I will not be far. And I will make a draught for your dreams,” he said, voice low. “That they might be peaceful.”

Taekwoon was gone when Kyungsoo managed to choke out a thank you. He was alone in his home with the scent of Baekhyun's favorite soap and the heat of the water, rapidly cooling around him.

~

Yixing had left by the time Kyungsoo went back.

“He went to Yifan,” Jongdae murmured, cradling Hakyeon, Jongin tucked into their sides like a small child. Baekhyun laid on the bed beside theirs, pink-cheeked and dreaming, his pale hair hiding his equally pale eyelashes. Following Kyungsoo's line of vision, Jongdae was swift to reassure. “He said he's all right. Just exhausted.”

“Very well,” Kyungsoo murmured, carefully hefting Baekhyun's small body up from the bed, still wrapped in a soft duvet “I will be in my home.”

“Of course,” Jongdae nodded, bowed his head when Kyungsoo left the room.

The walk to his home again felt like floating, save that now Baekhyun's breath was gentle on his neck, his little fingers curled close to Kyungsoo's chest. He was not that much smaller than Kyungsoo, not really, but everything about him seemed tiny and delicate. Small shoulders, small waist, thin hands, thin feet. He was narrower than Kyungsoo, and only a hair shorter. Kyungsoo set him down in his large bed, wide and low near the fireplace, and laid beside him until he started to wake, shifting, making small noises of confusion.

“Mm. Kyungsoo?”

“Yes,” he replied, his voice rough as he tucked one hand against Baekhyun's face. “I'm here.”

“Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun turned, pressed his chest to Kyungsoos and did not wait for permission to kiss him, did not lick at his lips and wait for a kiss to be given to him but took it, with no small amount of desperate fervor. Kyungsoo shifted, rolled them over so Baekhyun was pinned beneath him. With his elbows bent, forearms on either side of Baekhyun's neck and hands buried in his pale lavender hair Kyungsoo kissed him, kissed him until his lips were pink and swollen, kissed him until Baekhyun whimpered and wiggled beneath him. He was so beautiful in pleasure. That second night, and every night after, Kyungsoo had been astonished by his sensual and needy behavior. It no longer surprised him, but he wanted to take a moment to appreciate it, this beauty he'd been so sure he would never have again.

“Please,” Baekhyun whispered, cupping Kyungsoo's neck and mouthing at his jaw, the corner of his mouth. “Please, I need you, now, please.”

The fire in Kyungsoo's belly roared, demanded he take Baekhyun fiercely, stake claim on him, own him. But he already owned him, heart, mind, body. Such savagery wasn't necessary. He took a moment to think, to breathe, on top of Baekhyun, between his sheet-covered legs. He kissed him soft, on the cheeks, lips and chin.

“Kyungsoo?” Baekhyun asked, his hands touching Kyungsoo's shoulders, reaching to scratch gently at his scalp. His heartbeat was steady and his breathing were soft.

“Up,” Kyungsoo murmured. “Up and undressed, pet.”

Baekhyun was slow to do as he asked. He pulled the blanket open to reveal he had nothing on beneath it, and shivered when Kyungsoo stared at him, checking every line, every inch of skin, to make sure he was unharmed. There weren't even scars. Baekhyun was perfect. With small shoulders, a thin waist, small hips and strong thighs, lightly muscled arms and a strangely thin, now white brush of pubic hair he was as perfect as he had been on that first night Kyungsoo had savaged him.

“On your knees.”

Baekhyun did as he was asked with shaking thighs, bending over, resting his chest on the bed. He was so pale. Kyungsoo kissed his back, the roundness of his backside and spread his cheeks to lick at dusty pink skin. He was pale here, too, and Kyungsoo pushed his tongue inside to the sound of an enthusiastic whine, Baekhyun's legs trembling violently. He opened him with his tongue, his finger, then two. Baekhyun shook with exhaustion but pushed back onto his hand, open-mouthed and panting, saliva on the bed under his cheek. “Ah, ah more, more please...” Kyungsoo pushed a third finger inside and pulled his hand away slowly, grabbing for the salve he kept at bedside to slick himself, getting up behind his lover and rubbing his cock against him, bumping his hips forward, teasing.

“Please, don't tease me, Kyungsoo please, I need you, need you.”

“Need me,” Kyungsoo murmured, angled himself and pushed in, slow, deep, without stopping. Like always, Baekhyun's body accepted him. Like always there was no resistance, no fight, just tight warmth and the ripple of Baekhyun's shivering muscles. Baekhyun wailed into his pillow when Kyungsoo was seated. Baekhyun squirmed, bucked back against him and fought to hold still. Such a beautiful, beautiful creature. And all his. Kyungsoo kissed his shoulder. “You need me, pet?”

“Yes,” Baekhyun panted, fingers clawed in the sheets. “Yes, need you inside me, need you on top of me, filling me, I need you, I always need you--”

Kyungsoo carefully lowered Baekhyun down to his belly and repositioned so they were on their sides. He pulled Baekhyun's leg back over his own and thrust, watched Baekhyun's eyes roll back and close, watched his chest press out for attention. He rubbed one nipple with two fingers and imagined for a moment that there was a breast there for him to cup. It was not the first time. Baekhyun often spoke filthy of being full-bellied, pregnant, giving Kyungsoo children. The idea had never appealed to him as much as Baekhyun's whorish submission, but now... It intrigued him. Breasts to cup, to suck. A big belly, a mother. The wild wonder if Taekwoon could make Baekhyun a woman ran through his mind before he could catch the thought.

“Would that you were a woman,” Kyungsoo said, pulling Baekhyun's hair so he could speak directly into his ear, lips and teeth brushing the sensitive skin in bites, sucks and little chews of skin. “I would fuck you pregnant, make you the mother of my children.”

“Yes,” Baekhyun sobbed, reaching back to hold Kyungsoo's sides. “Yes yes yes please Kyungsoo please--”

“Would you like that, my pretty little pet,” he asked, enjoying Baekhyun's startled shriek at the clench of teeth in his neck. “To be fucked full of my seed, to bear my children like the beautiful slave girl you are?” Kyungsoo's voice was filthy and reverent, his thrusts hard and deep. One hand reached to grip Baekhyun's modest erection and rub like he was a woman, the motion focused solely on pleasing him and nothing else. He smiled when his lover's body started to nearly thrash, pushing back, jerking forward, chest heaving, neck stretched prettily. “Cum for me, Baekhyun,” he murmured. “Milk me.”

Baekhyun screamed and convulsed, coming in a wet splatter up his stomach, clenching down hard and attempting to ride Kyungsoo's thrusts as the man rolled him onto his belly and fucked down into him, coming with a snarl. Kyungsoo bit his shoulder, chewed at it, his neck, his ear. “Mine,” he growled, his arms under Baekhyun's chest to hold him up. “My pretty little pet, my Baekhyun. Mine.”

Baekhyun was trembling violently. Kyungsoo shifted his weight and slipped out, dragging himself up to the headboard and pulling Baekhyun close to him, kissing his face, his hands, his hair. He wrapped the duvet around their bodies and curled in around Baekhyun. Just the two of them. Only the two of them. They were both wet and sweaty, and Baekhyun had hot slick dripping down his thigh but Kyungsoo didn't care. He didn't care, not when they were kissing like this, not when Baekhyun's hand was pressed over Kyungsoo's heart.

“I love you,” Baekhyun whispered, with a kiss to Kyungsoo's neck. Kyungsoo paused, and pulled back to look down at the smaller man in his arms, meeting his pale eyes.

“I love you,” he said, his voice a terrified whisper. He'd avoided saying it as much as he could. Said it once in a moment of weakness, because he needed Baekhyun to understand, he'd needed him to _understand._ But he'd always understood, really. Some of the weight holding Kyungsoo down dropped away.

Baekhyun lit up, his smile bright, his arms around Kyungsoo while he peppered his face with kisses despite the pain he must have been in, how sore...

Something good had come out of all of this, Kyungsoo knew. He couldn't put words to it yet. But it was good. It felt full instead of hollow, it felt warm and weighted, but not heavy.

“I love you.” he said it again, his cheek to Baekhyun's hair. Baekhyun wiggled closer and pressed his hand over Kyungsoo's heartbeat.

“I know,” he said, softly. “I have always known.”

Kyungsoo felt a wry smile touch his face. Of course Baekhyun had known. It was as though he could see through Kyungsoo like a mirror and perhaps that was why he'd been so cruel, that was why he'd ripped Baekhyun to pieces that first night because he hated that someone could see him, that someone could look inside of him and see the hurt and the ache and the rot in the grave where his soul used to be.

Where his soul was now slowly coming up out of the soil, like a mayflower, reaching for the light.

 


End file.
